Hurting people are scared people… huddled in cold bathrooms, lying on concrete floors with leaking toilets getting their clothes wet through those drunken nights… through those drunken nights you see broken people passed out from worries too heavy to get high, too numerous to escape… how can you be cornered in an alley in the middle of the street??? how can you be trapped in a box when you are sleeping on a bench at a park???

Cigarette teeth, smile, yellow… and black where they meet the gum-line. Loose lips, spill stories, express gratitude and spew awful words that express the death that is all around like abandoned buildings, old friends died in those dead buildings, mysteries… cracked foundations… in buildings, in minds, in hearts, in the street… in the street flowers grow in cracks… cut down by cars driving by too fast to notice the beauty smashed on their tires.

Scared people are tired people… sleep comes slowly when stars shine in your face like constant reminders of unmet expectations… hunger hurts… and disappearing hurts too… faces with no names drift by, people with no identity, no soul, no heart, no feeling, no kind words, no love, no peace, no grace, no mercy… stare at you… judge you… leave without speaking, leave without noticing the empty stomach, the empty hands stretched out to the cloudy sky, the rain…